This is Steven Salzberg's blog on genomics, pseudoscience, medical breakthroughs, higher education, and other topics, including skepticism about unscientific medical practices. Here's where I can say what I really think about abuses and distortions of science, wherever I see them.

Gwyneth Paltrow has invented stickers that promote healing. Yes, stickers. Little circular stick-on thingies that you might give to your 1st-grader as a reward for doing her homework.

Gwyneth, though, has discovered something much deeper about stickers. If you make them with just the right materials, and then stick them on your body in the right places, they "rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies."

(A quick warning: if you follow the links in this article, put down your coffee first. You might laugh so hard that you'll spill it all over yourself.)

Until a day or two ago, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website–a "lifestyle" business that sells all things Gwyneth–advertised these stickers as using "NASA space suit material," which presumably was the source of their magic healing properties. Then Gizmodo called someone at NASA to check out this claim, and got a very clear answer.

Nope. Goop's stickers are not made of space suit material. (Not that space suit material has healing properties in the first place–it doesn't.) Gizmodo's quote from a former NASA scientist, Mark Shelhamer, sums it up nicely:

“Wow,” Shelhamer told Gizmodo. “What a load of BS this is.”

Goop quickly updated their site, and now they don't claim anything about NASA space suits in their stickers. But they didn't dial back any of their magical healing claims. Here's what Goop says now, in an article called "Wearable Stickers that Promote Healing (Really!)":

Wow. What gobbledygook. I see what that NASA scientist meant. But wait, there's more! Goop tells us:

"Studies have shown that when your frequency slips, your immune system is compromised, which opens the door to getting sick."

Studies? No such studies exist. People don't have a "frequency," and there's nothing to "slip." I think it's fair to say that the Goop claims about these stickers are so ridiculous that they're not even wrong.

These stickers are powerful, though, so you must be careful. Goop warns that

"We recommend starting with 1 or 2 for sensitive people. Wearing more than 4 may cause some dilution of the individual frequencies."

Oh boy.

Paltrow sells these magic stickers (and all of her products) using pictures of beautiful models doing healthy activities while wearing stickers. This is part of Goop's appeal: Paltrow is suggesting, in essence, "I'm beautiful and healthy and I'm in my forties, so I know the medical secrets that will keep you beautiful too."

It took me just a few seconds to find that you can get a sheet with about 50 "dreams come true" stickers at stickersgalore.com for less than $2. These don't come with any wild health claims, but they do make kids happy. I recommend trying these before you get the Goop stickers.

Goop's (and Gwyneth's) claims about their stickers are so ridiculous, so laughably nutty, that I can't really feel sorry for the people who fall for them. Anyone who can afford to waste $60 for a pack of stickers probably has too much money and not enough sense. It's just too bad that they're giving their money to a wealthy actress rather than donating it to some worthy cause.

Finally, I should note that I've always liked Paltrow as an actress, in movies such as Emma and Shakespeare in Love from the 1990s through the recent Iron Man franchise. But why would her acting skills make her an expert on human health? They don't.

There's no way that we can convince people to stop texting while driving. It's incredibly dangerous, selfish, and reckless. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, distracted driving killed at least 3,477 people in 2015 alone. Many states have outlawed texting while driving, including my own state of Maryland, but every day I pass people on busy roads who are looking at their phones.

The only solution is technological. The phone itself needs to stop distracting you while you're driving. People aren't going to put their phones down voluntarily.

Apple's iOS 11, coming this fall, finally offers a solution. It may not solve the problem entirely, but it will likely save lives.

Apple's IOS 11, coming in the fall of 2017,

will offer Do Not Disturb while driving

The solution is very simple, technically speaking. Your phone already knows when it's on a roadway, and it knows that it's moving. So the phone's software–iOS, if it's an Apple phone–can simply disable any apps that might cause distractions.

Apple's preview of iOS11 says it will do more than that. It will not only silence all incoming calls, text messages, and other notifications, but it will text people back automatically and tell them that you're driving.

You'll still be able to use maps and GPS for directions, which is an extremely useful feature that many people just can't do without (and that doesn't cause traffic accidents).

This is a great idea that is long overdue. Apparently, Apple couldn't resist allowing passengers in the car to override the do-not-disturb mode, which I think is a pretty terrible idea. I doubt that the phone will recognize when a passenger just hands it to the driver, but I'll have to wait and see how Apple implemented this override feature. I hope it's really hard to do.

iOS 11 is coming in the fall. Google hasn't yet said anything about whether Android phones will have a similar feature, but I hope they will. This is desperately needed, and it will save lives.